History of May Day

Ex LIBRrS

UNIVERSITATIS

ALBERTENSIS

HISTORY

OF

MAY DAY

BY ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK

NOTE

History of May Day was first published in 1929 and was re-
issued in many editions, reaching a circulation of over a quarter
million copies. It is now published in a revised edition.

Copyright, 1947, by

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS CO., Inc.

JOS

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Ni vLfiSITY OF ALBERTA

HISTORY OF MAY DAY

THE ORIGIN OF MAY DAY is indissolubly bound up with the
struggle for the shorter workday— a demand of major political
significance for the working class. This struggle is manifest almost
from the beginning of the factory system in the United States.

Although the demand for higher wages appears to be the most
prevalent cause for the early strikes in this country, the question
of shorter hours and the right to organize were always kept in the
foreground when workers formulated their demands. As exploita-
tion was becoming intensified and workers were feeling more and
more the strain of inhumanly long working hours, the demand
for an appreciable reduction of hours became more pronounced.

Already at the opening of the 19th century, workers in the
United States made known their grievances against working from
“sunrise to sunset,” the then prevailing workday. Fourteen, six-
teen and even eighteen hours a day were not uncommon. During
the conspiracy trial against the leaders of striking Philadelphia
cordwainers in 1806, it was brought out that workers were em-
ployed as long as nineteen and twenty hours a day.

The twenties and thirties are replete with strikes for reduction
of hours of work and definite demands for a 10-hour day were put
forward in many industrial centers. The organization of what is
considered as the first trade union in the world, the Mechanics'
Union of Philadelphia, preceding by two years the one formed
by workers in England, can be definitely ascribed to a strike of
building trade workers in Philadelphia in 1827 f° r the 10-hour
day. During the bakers’ strike in New York in 1834 the Work-
ingmen's Advocate reported that “journeymen employed in the
loaf bread business have for years been suffering worse than Egyp-

S

tian bondage. They have had to labor on an average of eighteen
to twenty hours out of the twenty-four.”

The demand in those localities for a 10-hour day soon grew
into a movement, which, although impeded by the crisis of 1837,
led the federal government under President Van Buren to decree
the 10-hour day for all those employed on government work.
The struggle for the universality of the 10-hour day, however,
continued during the next decades. No sooner had this demand
been secured in a number of industries than the workers began
to raise the slogan for an 8-hour day. The feverish activity in
organizing labor unions during the fifties gave this new demand
an impetus which, however, was checked by the crisis of 1857.
The demand was, however, won in a few well-organized trades
before the crisis. That the movement for a shorter workday was
not only peculiar to the United States, but was prevalent wher-
ever workers were exploited under the rising capitalist system,
can be seen from the fact that even in far away Australia the
building trade workers raised the slogan ”8 hours work, 8 hours
recreation and 8 hours rest” and were successful in securing this
demand in 1856.

EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT STARTED IN AMERICA

The struggles which directly gave birth to May Day, were
initiated in the United States in 1884 in the movement for the
8-hour day. However, a generation before, a national labor organ-
ization, the National Labor Union, which at first gave great
promise of developing into a militant organizing center of the
American working class, took up the question of a shorter work-
day and proposed to organize a broad movement in its behalf.
The first years of the Civil War, 1861-1862, saw the disappearance
of the few national trade unions which had been formed just
before the war began, especially the Molders* Union and the
Machinists* and Blacksmiths* Union. The years immediately fol-
lowing, however, witnessed the unification on a national scale of
a number of local labor organizations, and the urge for a national

4

federation of all these unions became apparent. On August 20,
1866, there gathered in Baltimore delegates from three scores of
trade unions who formed the National Labor Union. The move-
ment for the national organization was led by William H. Sylvis,
the leader of the reconstructed Molders' Union, who, although a
young man, was the outstanding figure in the labor movement of
those years. Sylvis was in correspondence with the leaders of
the First International in London and helped to influence the
National Labor Union to establish relations with the General
Council of the International.

It was at the founding convention of the National Labor Union
in 1866 that the following resolution was passed:

“The first and great necessity of the present, to free labor of this
country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which
8 hours shall be the normal working day in all states in the
American union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength
until this glorious result is attained.*'

The same convention voted for independent political action in
connection with the securing of the legal enactment of the 8-hour
day and the “election of men pledged to sustain and represent
the interests of the industrial classes.**

Eight-hour leagues were formed as a result of the agitation of
the National Labor Union; and through the political activity
which the organization developed, several state governments
adopted the 8-hour day on public work and the U. S. Congress
enacted a similar law in 1868. The inspired leader of the 8-hour
movement was the Boston machinist, Ira Steward.

The program and policies of the early labor movement, al-
though primitive and not always sound, were based, nevertheless,
on healthy proletarian instinct and could have served as starting
points for the development of a militant labor movement in this
country were it not for the role played by reformist misleaders
and capitalist politicians who later infested the labor organiza-
tions and directed them in wrong channels. Thus, four genera-
tions back, the national organization of American labor, the
N. L. U., expressed itself against “capitalist slavery” and for inde-
pendent political action.

5

Sylvis continued to keep in touch with the International in
London. Due to his influence as president of the organization, the
National Labor Union voted at its convention in 1867 to co-
operate with the international working class movement and in
1869 it voted to accept the invitation of the General Council
and send a delegate to the Basle Congress of the International.
Unfortunately, Sylvis died just before the N. L. U. convention,
and A. C. Cameron, the editor of the Workingmen's Advocate, '
published in Chicago, was sent as delegate in his stead. In a
special resolution the General Council mourned the death of this
promising young American labor leader. “The eyes of all were
turned upon Sylvis, who, as a general of the proletarian army,
had an experience of ten years, outside of his great abilities— and
Sylvis is dead.” The passing of Sylvis was one of the contributing
causes of the decay which soon set in and led to the disappearance
of the National Labor Union.

MARX ON THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT

The decision for the 8-hour day was made by the National
Labor Union in August, 1866. In September of the same year
the Geneva Congress of the First International went on record
for the same demand in the following words:

“The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary con-
dition without which all further attempts at improvements and
emancipation of the working class must prove abortive. . . . The
Congress proposes 8 hours as the legal limit of the working day.”

In the chapter on “The Working Day” in the first volume of
Capital, published in 1867, Marx calls attention to the inaugura-
tion of the 8-hour movement by the National Labor Union. In
the passage, famous especially because it contains Marx's telling
reference to the solidarity of class interests between the Negro
and white workers, he wrote:

“In the United States of America, any sort of independent
labor movement was paralyzed so long as slavery disfigured a part
of the republic. Labor with a white skin cannot emancipate itself
where labor with a black skin is branded. But out of the death of

6

slavery a new vigorous life sprang. The first fruit of the Civil War
was an agitation for the 8-hour day— a movement which ran with
express speed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from New England
to California.”

Marx calls attention to how almost simultaneously, in fact
within two weeks of each other, a workers' convention meeting
in Baltimore voted for the 8-hour day, and an international con-
gress meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, adopted a similar decision.
“Thus on both sides of the Atlantic did the working class move-
ment, spontaneous outgrowth of the conditions of production,”
endorse the same movement of the limitation of hours of labor
and concretize it in the demand for the 8-hour day.

That the decision of the Geneva Congress was coordinated witfl
the American decision can be seen from the following portion of
the resolution: “As this limitation represents the general demand
of the workers of the North-American United States, the Congress
transforms this demand into the general platform of the workers
of the whole world.”

A similar influence of the American labor movement upon an
international congress and in behalf of the same cause was exerted
more profoundly 23 years later.

MAY DAY BORN IN THE UNITED STATES

The First International ceased to exist as an international
organization in 1872, when its headquarters were removed from
London to New York, although it was not officially disbanded
till 1876. It was at the first congress of the reconstituted Inter-
national, later known as the Second International, held at Paris
in 1889, that May First was set aside as a day upon which the
workers of the world, organized in their political parties and
trade unions, were to fight for the important political demand:
the 8-hour day. The Paris decision was influenced by a decision
made at Chicago five years earlier by delegates of a young
American labor organization— the Federation of Organized Trades
and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, later known
under the abbreviated name, American Federation of Labor. At

7

the Fourth Convention of this organization, October 7, 1884, the
following resolution was passed:

“Resolved by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor
Unions of the United States and Canada, that eight hours shall
constitute a legal day's labor from May First, 1886, and that we
recommend to labor organizations throughout their jurisdiction
that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by
the time named."

Although nothing was said in the resolution about the methods
by which the Federation expected to establish the 8-hour day,
it is self-evident that an organization which at that time com-
manded an adherence of not more than 50,000 members could
not declare “that eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s work"
without putting up a fight for it in the shops, mills, and mines
where its members were employed, and without attempting to
draw into the struggle for the 8-hour day still larger numbers
of workers. The provision in the resolution that the unions
affiliated to the Federation “so direct their laws as to conform
to this resolution" referred to the matter of paying strike benefits
to their members who were expected to strike on May First,
1886, for the 8-hour day, and would probably have to stay out
long enough to need assistance from the union. As this strike
action was to be national in scope and involve all the affiliated
organizations, the unions, according to their by-laws, had to
secure the endorsement of the strike by their members, particu-
larly since that would involve the expenditure of funds, etc. It
must be remembered that the Federation, just as the A. F. of L.
today, was organized on a voluntary, federation basis, and deci-
sions of a national convention could be binding upon affiliated
unions only if those unions endorsed these decisions.

PREPARATIONS FOR MAY DAY STRIKE

The great strike struggles of 1877, in which tens of thousands
of railroad and steel workers militantly fought against the cor-
porations and the government which sent troops to suppress the
strikes, left an impress on the whole labor movement. It was

8

the first great mass action of the American working class on a
national scale and, although they were defeated by the com-
bined forces of the State and capital, the American workers
emerged from these struggles with a clearer understanding of
their class position in society, a greater militancy and a height-
ened morale. It was in part an answer to the coal barons of
Pennsylvania who, in their attempt to destroy the miners’ organ-
ization in the anthracite region, railroaded ten militant miners
(Molly Maguires) to the gallows in 1875.

Although the decade 1880-1890 was generally one of the most
active in the development of American industry and the exten-
sion of the home market, the year 1884-1885 experienced a de-
pression which was a cyclical depression following the crisis of
1873. The movement for a shorter workday received added
impetus from the unemployment and the great suffering which
prevailed during that period.

The Federation, just organized, saw the possibility of utilizing
the slogan of the 8-hour day as a rallying organization slogan
among the great masses of workers who were outside of the
Federation and the Knights of Labor, an older and then still
growing organization. The Federation appealed to the Knights
of Labor for support in the movement for the 8-hour day, realiz-
ing that only a general action involving all organized labor, could
make possible favorable results.

At the convention of the Federation in 1885, the resolution on
the walk-out for May First of the following year was reiterated
and several national unions took action to prepare for the strug-
gle, among them particularly the Carpenters and Cigar Makers.
The agitation for the May First action for the 8-hour day showed
immediate results in the growth of membership of the existing
unions. The Knights of Labor grew by leaps and bounds, reaching
the apex of its growth in 1886. It is reported that the K. of L.,
which was better known than the Federation and was considered
a fighting organization, increased its membership from 200,000
to nearly 700,000 during that period. The Federation, first to
inaugurate the movement and definitely to set a date for the
strike for the 8-hour day, also grew in numbers and particularly

9

in prestige among the broad masses of the workers. As the day of
the strike was approaching and it was becoming evident that the
leadership of the K. of L., especially Terence Powderly, was
sabotaging the movement and even secretly advising its unions
not to strike, the popularity of the Federation was still more
enhanced. The rank and file of both organizations were enthusi-
astically preparing for the struggle. Eight-hQur day leagues and
associations sprang up in various cities and an elevated spirit of
militancy was felt throughout the labor movement, which was
infecting masses of unorganized workers. A new day w r as dawn-
ing for the American working class.

The best way to learn the mood of the workers is to study the
extent and seriousness of their struggles. The number of strikes
during a given period is a good indicator of the fighting mood of
the workers. The number of strikes during 1885 and 1886 as
compared with previous years shows what a spirit of militancy
was animating the labor movement. Not only were the workers
preparing for action on May First, 1886, but in 1885 the number
of strikes already showed an appreciable increase. During the
years 1881-1884 number of strikes and lockouts averaged
less than 500, and on the average involved only about 150,000
workers a year. The strikes and lockouts in 1885 increased to
about 700 and the number of workers involved jumped to
250,000. In 1886 the number of strikes more than doubled over
1885, attaining as many as 1,572, with a proportional increase
in the number of workers affected, now 600,000. How widespread
the strike movement became in 1886 can be seen from the fact
that while in 1885 there were only 2,467 establishments affected
by strikes, the number involved in the following year had in-
creased to 11,562. In spite of open sabotage by the leadership of
the K. of L., it was estimated that over 500,000 workers were
directly involved in strikes for the 8-hour day.

The strike center was Chicago, where the strike movement was
most widespread, but many other cities were involved in the
struggle on May First. New York, Baltimore, Washington, Mil-
waukee, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and many
other cities made a good showing in the walkout. The charac-

10

teristic feature of the strike movement was that the unskilled and
unorganized workers were drawn into the struggle, and that sym-
pathetic strikes were quite prevalent during that period. A rebel-
lious spirit was abroad in the land, and bourgeois historians
speak of the “social war” and “hatred for capital” which was
manifested during these strikes, and of the enthusiasm of the
rank and file which pervaded the movement. It is estimated that
about half of the number of workers who struck on May First
were successful, and where they did not secure the 8-hour day,
they succeeded in appreciably reducing the hours of labor.

THE CHICAGO STRIKE AND HAYMARKET

The May First strike was most aggressive in Chicago, which
was at that time the center of a militant Left-wing labor move-
ment. Although insufficiently clear politically on a number of
the problems of the labor movement, it was nevertheless a fight-
ing movement, always ready to call the workers to action, develop
their fighting spirit in the struggle for the immediate improve-
ment of their living and working conditions.

With the aid of the militant labor groups the strike in Chicago
assumed the largest proportions. An 8-hour Association was
formed long in advance of the strike to prepare for it. The
Central Labor Union, composed of the Left-wing labor unions,
gave full support to the 8-hour Association, which was a united
front organization, including the unions affiliated to the Federa-
tion, the K. of L., and the Socialist Labor Party, the first organ-
ized socialist political party of the American working class. On
the Sunday before May First the Central Labor Union organized
a mobilization demonstration which was attended by 25,000
workers.

On May First, Chicago witnessed a great outpouring of work-
ers, who laid down tools at the call of the organized labor move-
ment of the city. It was the most effective demonstration of class
solidarity yet experienced by the labor movement itself. The im-
portance at that time of the demand-the 8-hour day-and the
extent and character of the strike gave the movement significant

11

political meaning. This significance was deepened by the develop-
ments of the next few days. The 8-hour movement, culminating
in the strike on May First, 1886, forms by itself a glorious chap-
ter in the fighting history of the American working class.

The enemies of the workers did not remain idle. The march
of the Chicago workers was arrested by the then superior com-
bined force of the employers and the city government, determined
to destroy the militant leaders, hoping thereby to deal a deadly
blow to the entire labor movement of Chicago. The events of
May 3 and 4, which led to what is known as the Haymarket Affair,
were a direct outgrowth of the May First strike. The demonstra-
tion held on May 4 at Haymarket Square was called to protest
against the brutal attack of the police upon a meeting of striking
workers at the McCormick Reaper Works on May 3, where six
workers were killed and many wounded. The meeting was peace-
ful and about to be adjourned when the police again launched
an attack upon the assembled workers. A bomb was thrown into
the crowd, killing a sergeant. A battle ensued with the result
that seven policemen and four workers were dead. The blood
bath at Haymarket Square, the railroading to the gallows of
Parsons, Spies, Fischer, and Engel, and the imprisonment of the
other militant Chicago leaders, was the answer of the Chicago
employers. It was the signal for action to the bosses all over the
country. The second half of 1886 was marked by a concentrated
offensive of the employers, determined to regain the position lost
during the strike movement of 1885-1886.

One year after the hanging of the Chicago labor leaders, the
Federation, now known as the American Federation of Labor, at
its convention in St. Louis in 1888, voted to rejuvenate the move-
ment for the 8-hour day. May First, which was already a tradi-
tion, having served two years before as the concentration point
of the powerful movement of the workers based upon a political
class issue, was again chosen as the day upon which to re-inaugu-
rate the struggle for the 8-hour day. May First, 1890, was to
witness a nation-wide strike for the shorter workday. At the
convention in 1889, the leaders of the A. F. of L., headed by
Samuel Gompers, succeeded in limiting the strike movement. It

12

was decided that the Carpenters* Union, which was considered
best prepared for the strike, should lead off with the strike, and
if it proved successful, other unions were to fall in line.

MAY DAY BECOMES INTERNATIONAL

In his autobiography Gompers tells how the A. F. of L. con-
tributed to making May Day an international labor holiday: “As
plans for the 8-hour movement developed, we were constantly
realizing how we could widen our purpose. As the time of the
meeting of the International Workingmen's Congress in Paris
approached, it occurred to me that we could aid our movement
by an expression of world-wide sympathy from that congress."
Gompers, who had already exhibited all the attributes of reform-
ism and opportunism which later came to full bloom in his class
collaborationist policy, was ready to get the support of a move-
ment among the socialist workers, the influence of which he
strongly combated.

On July 14, 1889, the hundredth anniversary of the fall of
the Bastille, there assembled in Paris, leaders from organized
socialist movements of many lands, to form once more an inter-
national organization of workers, patterned after the one formed
25 years earlier by their great teachers, Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels. Those assembled at the foundation meeting of what was
to become the Second International heard from the American
delegates about the struggle in America for the 8-hour day during
1884-1886, and the recent rejuvenation of the movement. Inspired
by the example of the American workers, the Paris Congress
adopted the following resolution:

“The Congress decides to organize a great international demon-
stration, so that in all countries and in all cities on one appointed
day the toiling masses shall demand of the state authorities the
legal reduction of the working day to eight hours, as well as the
carrying out of other decisions of the Paris Congress. Since a
similar demonstration has already been decided upon for May 1,
1890, by the American Federation of Labor at its Convention in
St. Louis, December, 1888, this day is accepted for the inter-

13

national demonstration. The worker* of ,1,.
must organize rhi* h °* dle various countries

vailing if"” ; h “, d r ;" at,0n aCCOrdi "« 10 P-

tries, and in .he United SutKihc c." , f U '° P ” n

leadership of the sS,, S, I ' Jnion ' »" d ' r ‘he

trades entered into a wn 1 F . C , Ulre ’ and odler building

■he : f r ??. 8hour ** d^.!

various German industrial cities Lletoted M "n k ° rS “ ‘ he
in other European caniMic ^ b d May Day. Similarly

■he authorities warned fit T h ° nS ' ra T S .'' Crc “■ al,ho, 'S 1 '

In the united States, the’ Chicago and NetTo* ^

were of particularly great simiLn „ iork dem °nstrations
the streets in support of the 8 lm 7 / any thousands paraded
strations dose/whh gre^t o^en I ' Md the de ™"-

At the next Congress in Bru« / "’ ectings at ce ntral points,
iterated the originaf purpose of M * b ’ i® 91 ’ the ^ternational re-
day, but added tha/it most } *? m ’ l ° demand th e 8-hour
^half of the demands ^ 3 d — a ^n in

iariy stressed the importance ^ h reS ° 1Uti ° n particu-
First demonstrations” for the 8 hn 7 ** character of *e May
which would lead to the “deepening^ tf^h^ 7 0ther demand ^
resolution also demanded that work h " $ Stru ^ ,e -” The

tthie.” A, .hough .he reference Mil IT* "?* Km P~
conditional, the International beea n ! , 7 Fir$t Was onl y

creuze the purposes of the demons^!, e ^f ge Up ° n and con '
showed their opportunism by refusine- 7 ^ BrUls b Lab orites

tional proposal for a strike on May fI t CWn the COndi -

German Social-Democrats voted to n 0 ! t " 7 t0gether with the
stration ,o .he Sunday following ^ S' ‘ he Da V d ™on.

excels on international may day

Manifesto, whlhelH lyT's, °' the
^ ° r 1,15

tion to the significance of the first International May Day:

“As I write these lines, the proletariat of Europe and America
is holding a review of its forces; it is mobilized for the first time
as One army, under One flag, and fighting One immediate aim:
an eight-hour working day, established by legal enactment. . . .
The spectacle we are now witnessing will make the capitalists and
landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all
lands are, in very truth, united. If only Marx were with me to see
it with his own eyes!“

The significance of simultaneous international proletarian
demonstration was appealing more and more to the imagination
and revolutionary instincts of the workers throughout the world,
and every year witnessed greater masses participating in the dem-
onstrations.

The response of the workers showed itself in the following
addition to the May First resolution adopted at the 1893 Congress
of the International at Zurich at which Engels was present.

“The demonstration on May First for the 8-hour day must serve
at the same time as a demonstration of the determined will of the
working class to destroy class distinctions through social change
and thus enter on the road, the only road leading to peace for all
peoples, to international peace.“

The reformist leaders of the various parties tried to devitalize
the May First demonstrations by turning them into days of rest
and recreation instead of days of struggle. This is why they al-
ways insisted on organizing the demonstrations on the Sunday
nearest May First. On Sundays workers would not have to strike
to stop work; they were not working anyway. To the reformist
leaders May Day was only an international labor holiday, a day
of pageants and games in the parks or outlying country. That
the resolution of the Zurich Congress demanded that May Day
should be a “demonstration of the determined will of the working
class to destroy class distinctions/' Le., the demonstration of the
will to fight for the abolition of the capitalist system of exploita-
tion and wage slavery, did not trouble the reformists, since they
did not consider themselves bound by the decisions of interna-
tional congresses. International Socialist Congresses were to them

*5

but meetings for international friendship and good-will, like
many other congresses that used to gather from time to time in
various European capitals before the war. 1 hey did everything
to discourage and thwart joint international action of the prole-
tariat, and decisions of international congresses which did not
conform with their ideas remained mere paper resolutions.
Twenty years later the “socialism” and “internationalism of
these reformist leaders stood exposed in all their nakedness. In
1914 the International lay shattered because from its very birth
it carried within it the seeds of its own destruction— the reformist
misleaders of the working class.

At the International Congress at Paris in 19°° d* e M a y Day
resolution of the previous Congresses was again adopted, and
was strengthened by the statement that stoppage of work on
May First would make the demonstration moie effective. More
and more, May Day demonstrations were becoming demonstra-
tions of power. Numbers of workers participating in the demon-
strations and stopping work on that day wore growing. May Day
became Red Day, which ruling reactionary circles in all lands
looked at with foreboding when each May Day came around.

LENIN ON MAY DAY

Early in his activity in the Russian revolutionary movement
Lenin contributed to making May Day knowm to the Russian
workers as a day of demonstration and struggle. While in prison,
in 1896, Lenin wrote a May Day leaflet for the St. Petersburg
Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, one
of the first Marxist political groups in Russia. The leaflet was
smuggled out of prison and 2,000 mimeographed copies distrib-
uted among workers in 40 factories. It was very short and written
in Lenin’s characteristically simple and direct style, so that the
least developed among the workers could understand it. “When
a month later the famous textile strikes of 1896 broke out, workers
were telling us that the first impetus was given by the little modest
May Day leaflet,” wrote a contemporary who helped to issue it.

After telling the workers how they are exploited for the benefit

16

of the owners of the factories in which they work, and how the
government persecutes those who demand improvement in their
conditions, Lenin proceeds to write about the significance of May
Day.

“In France, England, Germany and other countries where
workers have already been united in powerful unions and have
won for themselves many rights, they organized on April 19
(May 1) [the Russian calendar was then 13 days behind the West-
European] a general holiday of Labor. Leaving the stifling fac-
tories they march with unfurled banners, to the strains of music,
along the main streets of the cities, demonstrating to the bosses
their continuously growing power. They assemble at great mass
demonstrations where speeches are made recounting the victories
over the bosses during the preceding year and lay plans for strug-
gle in the future. Under the threat of strike the bosses do not dare
to fine the workers for not appearing at the factories on that day.
On this day the workers also remind the bosses of their main
demand: 8 hours work, 8 hours rest, and 8 hours recreation. This
is what the workers of other countries are demanding now.”

The Russian revolutionary movement utilized May Day to
great advantage. In the preface to a pamphlet. May Days in
Kharkov, published in November, 1900, Lenin wrote:

“In another six months, the Russian workers will celebrate the
first of May of the first year of the new century, and it is time we
set to work to make the arrangements for organizing the celebra-
tions in as large a number of centers as possible, and on as im-
posing a scale as possible, not only by the number that will take
part in them, but also by their organized character, by the class-
consciousness they will reveal, by the determination that will be
shown to commence the irrepressible struggle, for the political
liberation of the Russian people, and, consequently, for a free
opportunity for the class development of the proletariat and its
open struggle for Socialism.”

It can be seen how important Lenin considered the May Day
demonstrations, since he called attention to them six months
ahead of time. To him May Day was a rallying point for “the
irrepressible struggle for the political liberation of the Russian

1 7

people,” for “the class development of the proletariat and its
open struggle for Socialism.”

Speaking of how May Day celebrations "can become great
political demonstrations,” Lenin asked why the Kharkov May
Day celebration in 1900 was “an event of outstanding impor-
tance," and answered, "the mass participation of the workers in
the strike, the huge mass meetings in the streets, the unfurling
of red flags, the presentation of demands indicated in leaflets and
the revolutionary character of these demands— eight-hour day and
political liberty.”

Lenin upbraids the Kharkov party leaders for joining the de-
mands for the 8-hour day with other minor and purely economic
demands, for he does not want the political character of May
Day in any way beclouded. He writes in this preface:

“The first of these demands [8-hour day] is the general demand
put forward by the proletariat in all countries. The fact that this
demand was put forward indicates that the advanced workers of
Kharkov realize their solidarity with the international socialist
labor movement. But precisely for this reason a demand like this
should not have been included among minor demands like better
treatment by foremen, or a ten per cent increase in wages. The
demand for an eight-hour day, however, is the demand of the
whole proletariat, presented, not to individual employers, but to
the government as the representative of the whole of the present-
day social and political system, to the capitalist class as a whole,
the owners of all the means of production.”

MAY DAY POLITICAL SLOGANS

May Days became focal points for the international proletariat.
To the original demand for the 8-hour day were added other
significant slogans on which the workers were called upon to
concentrate during their May Day strikes and demonstrations.
These included: International Working Class Solidarity; Uni-
versal Suffrage; Against Imperialist War and Colonial Oppres-
sion; the Right to the Streets; Freeing of Political Prisoners; the

18

Right to Political and Economic Organization of the Working
Class.

The last time the old International spoke on the question of
May Day was at the Amsterdam Congress of 1904. After review-
ing the various political slogans which were employed in the
demonstrations and calling attention to the fact that in some
countries these demonstrations were still taking place on Sundays
instead of May First, the resolution concludes:

“The International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam calls upon
all Social-Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all
countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal
establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the pro-
letariat, and for universal peace. The most effective way of dem-
onstrating on May First is by stoppage of work. The Congress
therefore makes it mandatory upon the proletarian organizations
of all countries to stop work on May First, wherever it is possible
without injury to the workers.”

When the massacre of the strikers in the Lena goldfields in
Siberia in April, 1912, placed again the question of revolutionary
mass proletarian action on the order of the day in Russia, it was
on May Day of that year that hundreds of thousands of Russian
workers stopped work and came out into the streets to challenge
tsarist reaction, holding sway since the defeat of the first Russian
Revolution in 1905. Lenin wrote about this May Day:

“The great May strike of the workers all over Russia, and the
street demonstrations connected with it, the revolutionary procla-
mations, the revolutionary speeches to the working masses, show
clearly that Russia has once more entered the period of a rising
revolutionary situation.”

MAY DAY DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The betrayal by the Social-Democratic leaders during the war
appeared in bold relief on May Day, 1915. This was a logical
outgrowth of the class peace they made with the imperialist gov-
ernments in August, 1914. The German Social-Democracy called
upon the workers to remain at work; the French Socialists in a

*9

special manifesto assured the authorities that they need not fear
May First. The same attitude could be found among the Socialist
majorities of the other warring countries. Only the Bolsheviks of
Russia and the revolutionary minorities in other countries re-
mained true to socialism and internationalism. The voices of
Lenin, Luxemburg, and Liebknecht were raised against the
bacchanale of social-chauvinism. Partial strikes and open skir-
mishes in the streets on May Day, 1916, showed that the workers
in all warring countries were freeing themselves from the poison-
ous influence of their traitorous leaders. For Lenin, as for all
revolutionists, “the collapse of opportunism (the collapse of the
Second International.— A. T.) is beneficial for the labor move-
ment” and Lenin’s call for a new International, free of the be-
trayers, was the demand of the hour.

The Zimmerwaid (1915) and the Kienthal (1916) Socialist
Conferences resulted in crystallizing the revolutionary inter-
nationalist parties and minorities under Lenin’s slogan of turning
the imperialist war into civil war. The huge demonstrations in
Berlin on May Day, 1916, organized by Karl Liebknecht and his
followers in the Socialist movement, bore testimony to the living
forces of the working class, which were breaking through in spite
of the police prohibitions and the opposition of the official lead-
ership.

In the United States May Day was not abandoned when war
was declared in 1917. The proletarian elements in the Socialist
Party took seriously the anti-war resolution of the party adopted
at the Emergency St. Louis Convention early in April and utilized
May Day to protest against the imperialist war. The demonstra-
tion in Cleveland held on May First, 1919, and organized by
Charles E. Ruthenberg, then local secretary of the S. P. and later
one of the founders and general secretary of the Communist
Party, was particularly militant. Over 20,000 workers paraded the
streets to Public Square and were augmented there by many
thousands more. The police brutally attacked the meeting, killing
one worker and fatally wounding another.

May Day, 1917, the July Days, and finally the October Days
in Russia were but stages in the development of the Russian

20

Revolution to its fulfillment. The Russian Revolution, which
opened a new era in the history of mankind, gave new impetus
and significance to the tradition of May Day. The triumph of
proletarian power on one-sixth of the earth realized in life the
aspiration voiced by the A. F. of L. leaders of the first May Day
demonstration in Union Square, New York on May 1, 1890.
“While struggling for the 8-hour day we will not lose sight of the
ultimate aim— the abolition of the [capitalist] wage system,’’ read
the resolution presented to the striking masses on that occa-
sion. The Russian workers had proved to be the first to achieve
that aim. But by 1917, the A. F. of L. leaders had traveled far
from the aims enunciated in 1890. Their primary concern was to
preserve the capitalist system and to smooth the way for the ad-
vance of American imperialism. They did not want the American
workers to be inspired by the historic achievements of the Russian
proletariat which gave new meaning to the fighting spirit of May
Day, the day on which the working class proclaimed its inte-
national solidarity and its goal of emancipation from capitalist
exploitation and wage slavery.

For the May Day, 1923, edition of the weekly Worker, Charles
E. Ruthenberg wrote: “May Day— the day which inspires fear in
the hearts of the capitalists and hope in the workers— the workers
the world over— will find the Communist movement this year
stronger in the U. S. than at any time in its history. . . . The road
is clear for greater achievements, and in the United States as
elsewhere in the world the future belongs to communism.”

In a weekly Worker of a generation before, Eugene V. Debs
wrote in a May Day edition of the paper, published on April
27, 1907: “This is the first and only International Labor Day. It
belongs to the working class and is dedicated to the revolution.”

To counteract the growing, militant tradition of May Day, the
A. F. of L. leaders fostered the observance only of Labor Day, the
first Monday in September. This day had originally been adopted
on a local scale in 1885 and later was recognized by the various
State governments as an antidote to the May First celebrations.
Another antidote was inaugurated by the Hoover administration
with the aid of the A. F. of L. leaders by proclaiming May 1 as

21

Child Health Day. The real meaning of this sudden interest in
child welfare, however, may be gleaned from the following refer-
ence to the subject in a report submitted by the Executive Coun-
cil to the 1928 Convention of the A. F. of L. “The Communists
still maintain May 1 as Labor Day. Hereafter May 1 will be
known as Child Health Day, as the President is directed by the
resolution passed by Congress to issue a proclamation calling
upon the people of the United States to observe May 1 as Child
Health Day. The object is to create sentiment for year-round
protection of the health of children. It is a most worthy purpose.
At the same time May 1 no longer will be known as either strike
day or Communist Day ” (Italics mine— A.T.)

THE CRISIS OF 1929

Refusing to learn from experience, the reactionary trade union
leaders, for nearly a decade after the first World War, had been
busy sowing illusions of permanent prosperity under capitalism,
instead of organizing the millions of unorganized workers and
preparing the masses to meet the disasters with which capitalism
was soon to overwhelm them. When the economic crash came at
the end of 1929, and the trusts and monopolies tried to put the
entire burden of the crisis on the working people, the only pro-
tection the workers had was the resort to strikes and mass strug-
gles of the unemployed. As a result of these struggles, in which it
was the Communists who played a leading role, the American
workers were able to stave off even worse disasters and to enlarge
their democratic rights, while registering during the decade of the
1 93 ° s » both in the A. F. of L. and C.I.O., the greatest advances
in trade union organization in the history of the American work-
ing class. The launching of the C.I.O. in 1935 an d its rapid organ-
ization of the mass production industries constituted a major
achievement of historic significance for the entire labor movement
and country. As a result of this upsurge of American labor, the
conditions were created for an important advance of the Negro
people in their struggle for equal rights, thereby strengthening
still further the democratic front in the United States*

Shaken by imperialist war and revolution and an unprece-
dented economic crisis— all within the brief span of a decade and
a half— world capitalism had clearly entered a general crisis. The
imperialist rivalries which had resulted in the first World War
were only intensified by its outcome. Furthermore, the abolition
of capitalism on a sixth of the globe, the inexorable growth of
the colonial struggles for independence, and the mounting de-
termination of the workers of the advanced capitalist countries
to improve their living standards and maintain and extend their
democratic rights only enhanced the general crisis of capitalism.
The trusts and monopolists sought to preserve their stranglehold
on economic and political life and to stem the inevitable progress
of history by resorting to the terrorist dictatorship of fascism. The
monopolists in France, England and the United States did all in
their power to encourage fascist movements and to promote and
finance fascism in defeated Germany and in all other countries
where the weakness and disunity of the working class and other
progressive factions of the people opened the way for fascist vic-
tory. All this signified not only a world-wide effort of monopoly
capital to destroy centuries of democratic achievements but a
sure road to a new world war.

THE WAR AGAINST FASCISM

From 1933 t0 *939 German fascism served as the spearhead of
world reaction. Encouraged by Anglo-American imperialism
whose aim was to build up Nazi Germany for a war of annihila-
tion against the land of socialism, German fascism, motivated by
its own imperialist aims of subjugating the entire globe system-
atically prepared for the second World War, while the Japanese
imperialists joined in the conspiracy for their own ends. By its
very nature such a war could only be directed against the
national independence of every country of the world. In this
situation, it became increasingly evident that the fate of human
progress rested in the hands of the working people in alliance
with the farming masses and oppressed colonial peoples every-
where. They alone, by their initiative, their unity and resistance,

*3

could rally all the democratic forces and elements of the nation
to halt the disastrous advance of reaction inspired by monopoly
capital. Throughout the ’thirties, therefore, May Day echoed
the call for resistance to fascist aggression and unity of all demo-
cratic forces and peoples to stem the advance to a new world
slaughter.

World War II demonstrated beyond any further doubt that
the working class was the real backbone of the nation. If fascism
could come to power and plunge the world into a devastating
war because the working class was divided, it could not triumph
over a united and embattled working class everywhere spearhead-
ing the defense of democracy and progress and rallying the
democratic majority of mankind to crush the fascist monster.
And in this mortal struggle, the democratic peoples everywhere
saw with their own eyes that it was the Soviet Union and the
toiling masses of every country who were in the forefront of the
historic battle for national independence, democracy and
progress.

During the war the working class everywhere observed May
Day by staying on the job and producing the weapons for the
destruction of the fascist armies. When the war ended in i945>
the first May Day celebrations witnessed the outpouring of mil-
lions of toilers, especially in the victorious and liberated lands of
Europe, demonstrating their determination to continue the fight
to root out forever all remnants of fascism, to achieve once and
for all the unity of the working class with all other progressive
elements of the population as the sole guarantee that monopoly
capital will never again be able to resort to fascism as a means of
perpetuating its rapacious rule, to maintain and extend democ-
racy— the sovereign powder of the people, to establish a lasting
peace, and keep open the path to a socialist world free from
exploitation and oppression.

Struggling for peace and for a happier future for all mankind,
the working class of every country salutes on May Day the peoples
of the world in the spirit of international solidarity and comrade-
ship .

2 4

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